"

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

"

Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade yo...more

"

Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me the most. I dist...more

"

Dune was a world of paradox now—a world under siege, yet the center of power. To come under siege, he decided, was the inevitable fate of power.

"

Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires...more

"

Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate. Get the rich, the greedy, the criminals, the stu...more

"

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the co...more

"

Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the...more

"

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as...more

"

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and fa...more

"

Schools were started to train human talents... The Guild... emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs... politics. The original Bene ...more

"

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a ...more

"

Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?

"

There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of governmen...more

"

Government cannot be religious and self-assertive at the same time. Religious experience needs a spontaneity which laws inevitably suppress. And you c...more